Outgrown

As soon as the cluster of campers reached the dining hall Charlotte knelt and pretended to tie her shoes. The two college-age counselors who were bringing up the rear weaved their way around her, too engrossed in their conversation to really take notice of one kid kneeling in the gravel.

Once they were a few feet away Charlotte stood and darted behind the dining hall building. She quickly retrieved her phone out of her pocket and tapped the screen. This was the only place in camp that she had cell service so she’d been anxious for lunch time to finally arrive. “Come on, pick up,” she muttered as the line rang.

“Charlotte?”

“Hi, mom,” she replied. “Can you please come and pick me up?”

There was silence for a moment.

Then her mom said, “Honey, I’m confused. You begged for months to go to camp with Sadie this year. And it’s only been two days. Surely you’re not homesick already.”

Charlotte could feel her chest and throat getting tight, but she had to stay calm. “Please, mom,” she begged. Trying to keep the tears at bay. “I don’t want to be here anymore. I’ll give you all my babysitting money when I get back to cover the camp fee. I want to come home.”

Silence again.

“Mom?”

“Yeah, okay, honey. I have an appointment scheduled for this afternoon, so I’ll try and move it so I can get you today. But if not, I’ll come in the morning.”

“Thanks, mom!” Charlotte exclaimed, relief washing over her. “I’ve got to go. See you soon?”

“See you soon, honey,” her mom said with a note of concern.

Charlotte slipped her phone back into her pocket. She wished she could just hide out here until lunch was over, but they always did a roll call in the dining hall before heading out for afternoon activity sessions and they’d notice she was missing. So she scrambled back toward the entrance. Thankfully the line to get food hadn’t moved too quickly and she was able to sneak right into the end of it.

After getting a plate of tacos deposited on her tray, she scanned the tables for an open seat. For a moment Sadie’s eyes caught hers, but then Sadie immediately looked away and kept chatting animatedly with the other girls at her table.

Charlotte felt like dissolving into tears all over again, but she swallowed them down, just as she’d done several times in the last day and a half. She marched past Sadie’s table and saw a girl that she recognized from her cabin – her green ombre hair coloring made her impossible not to recognize – sitting with some campers from another cabin.

The girl – who Charlotte recalled was named Laura – saw Charlotte approaching and waved her over. “Want to join us?”

“Sure,” Charlotte said. Then she proceeded to settle into the seat across from Laura. “Thanks.”

“No problem. Charlotte, right?” Laura asked.

Charlotte nodded.

“These are my friends Meg and Deena,” Laura said, gesturing to the girls on her left. “They’re a year behind us, but we go to the same school.”

“Clifton Academy?” Charlotte asked.

“Yeah, how’d you know?” Laura asked.

“That’s where my frie– I mean that’s where Sadie goes to school and I know a lot of other kids from there go to camp here.”

“Yeah, most of the girls in our cabin go to Clifton. As if I don’t see enough of them during the school year,” she said with an eye-roll.

“You’re not friends with them?” Charlotte asked.

“Me? No way. I don’t know if you’ve noticed but they’re like really stuck-up and I definitely don’t meet their perfectly polished standards,” She flipped a strand of her green hair over her shoulder.

“Oh, I’ve noticed,” Charlotte said bitterly.

“How do you know Sadie?” Laura asked.

“We used to be next-door neighbors until she moved away last year,” Charlotte explained.

“Is she how you heard about Camp Nialo?”

“Yeah, it always sounded like a lot of fun, but I usually go to a softball camp instead.”

“Gotcha. Well, welcome! It’s nice to have someone else in the cabin that’s not one of the Clifton clones.”

Charlotte smiled. “They do all kind of look alike, don't they?”

“Exactly the same!” Laura said with wide eyes. “It’s totally creepy.”

They both laughed.

Then Charlotte’s face fell a bit. “My mom is coming to pick me up. I just don’t think this place is for me.”

“Bummer!” Laura exclaimed. “I wish you weren’t leaving, but I totally get it. If my parents didn’t force me to be here, I wouldn’t be.”

Charlotte managed a half-grin.

“Are you leaving before the afternoon activity session?” Laura asked.

“No, my mom will come this evening or tomorrow morning.”

“Cool. We’ve got archery. So we can share a target and pretend we’re shooting clones,” Laura said excitedly.

Charlotte smiled, “That sounds great!”

***

Charlotte carefully folded the last of her clothes and tucked them into her duffel bag. She wanted to be ready whenever her mom showed up. The afternoon had been the most fun she’d had since arriving at camp. Laura and her friends were really nice and funny. But even so she still didn’t want to stick it out for the next ten days.

“What are you doing?” a voice asked from the cabin doorway.

Charlotte jumped. Everyone else had been outside playing soccer or hanging out by the field so she thought she was alone. She turned to see Sadie standing there with her hands on her hips and her high ponytail cascading over her shoulder.

“I’m packing,” Charlotte said curtly.

“Why?” Sadie asked.

“Because I’m leaving. My mom’s coming to get me.” Charlotte could feel Sadie’s eyes scrutinizing her.

“Is this because of me?” Sadie asked.

Charlotte shrugged.

“I know I always used to say how much fun it would be if you came to camp too, but that was a long time ago,” Sadie declared.

“It was just last year,” Charlotte said.

“Well a lot of things have changed.”

“No, they haven’t,” Charlotte said as she zipped up her bag and met Sadie’s gaze. “But you have.”

Sadie shifted her weight from one hip to the other. “So maybe I have, but maybe that’s a good thing. Things can’t always stay the same, Charlotte.”

“I know that,” Charlotte said pointedly. “But do you really think you’ve changed in a good way? You used to be my friend. You used to have my back. Now you just say things behind it to make your new friends laugh. I heard what you said when they handed out the camp t-shirts and mine was bigger than everyone else’s.”

“Oh come on, Charlotte,” Sadie huffed. “I just said you’re big-boned. That’s not mean.”

“But when your friend said ‘that’s just a nice way of saying fat’ you laughed along with the rest of them” Charlotte said.

“I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“Whatever, Sadie,” Charlotte said. For the first time since arriving at camp she didn’t feel sad, she just felt angry. No tears were gathering, just plenty of words. “Clearly I was stupid for thinking that coming to camp would let me spend time with my best friend that I’ve been missing so much. But now I see it wasn’t just distance that’s put space between us. You’ve found new friends at Clifton and you seem happy with the new you. But I’m not interested in watching you play popular from the sidelines. So I’m going home and if I’m lucky I can still go to the second week of softball camp.”

Sadie opened her mouth. But suddenly one of the counselors appeared behind her.

“Charlotte,” the counselor called out. “Your mom is here to pick you up!”

Charlotte grabbed her bag and strode toward the doorway.

“If you get sick of trying to fit in with all those shallow girls, Laura seems pretty cool. She reminds me of the old you. The one that was funny and bold who didn’t seem to care what people think.”

Sadie looked away.

Charlotte slipped past her and followed the counselor to where her mom’s car was waiting. She turned and glanced behind to see Sadie rejoin her crew of clones and a figure with green hair waving good-bye.

Charlotte raised her hand and waved back. The summer camp experience hadn’t been what she hoped it’d be. But even though she’d lost a friend, she’d learned how to gain a new one. Looking back wasn’t a bad thing, but the only direction to move was forward.